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Friday, May 17, 2013

Antony Pilley's poster of the Ramblas

Completed in the spring of 2002 after more than six years of work, this painting was started from the top of a step ladder in the middle of Barcelona’s most famous walkway, Las Ramblas. In infinite detail, it describes a world of romance, anarchy and illusion

In 1981 Anthony Pilley arrived in Barcelona to visit Gaudí’s Temple of the Sagrada Familia and to get to know the city which had patronised such an exotic construction. So very different from the small, austere churches of protestant Scotland, The Sagrada Familia seemed outrageously exuberant!
Between 1984 and 1986 he carried out a series of twelve paintings in locations around Barcelona. These included representations of two of the city's most emblematic landmarks: the temple of Sagrada Familia and the statue of Christopher Columbus.

In 1995, having lived next to Barcelona’s main pedestrian street, the Ramblas, for over ten years, Anthony Pilley began the meticulous process of creating an image of it. Theatre and fantasy meet with architectural precision. The resultant painting is called “The Ramblas and its living statues” and was finally finished in February, 2002.